A Boy Named Sue And Cats And The Cradle By Harry Charle Analysis

Comparing and Contrasting “A Boy Named Sue” and “Cat’s and the Cradle” Twenty-four million children in America live in a fatherless household. Studies have shown that family structure greatly impacts a child’s life. Children without fathers are more involved in crime, more likely to live in poverty, and struggle with behavioral problems. “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash, and “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin, are songs that focus on two boys with absent fathers. The songs portray how a missing father similarly affected the main characters, even though they lived very different lives. “A Boy Named Sue” and “Cat’s and the Cradle” compare with each other because the two main characters were missing a father figure during their childhood. In “A Boy Name Sue”, Sue’s father left him and his mother when he was a mere three years old. Because of his absence, Sue had to …show more content…
Sue knows that if he has a child, he will name them “Bill or George, any darn thing but Sue”, a name that won’t cause his children to hate him as he once hated his father. It can be assumed that Sue will always try to be there for his kids. However, the absence of his father could make it difficult for him to understand how a father and son connect. The boy in “Cat’s and the Cradle” eventually stopped keeping his father up to date on his life. Later in the song, the father realizes his son 's ambitions, goals of college, and a future. The dad wants to spend more time with him, yet slowly grasps the reality that now his son has no time for him. In the last verse, Harry Chapin illustrates that the boy is all grown up with a fast paced job and kids of his own. Some may argue that the son is now exactly like his dad, but the son is choosing not to see him, placing his children 's needs at a higher priority. Neither of the men became replicas of their dads, and chose to be their own